I would guess that you, like me, do not consider any of these three "objective moralities." The question then becomes, "Is there anything left in the field of ethics which can be considered objective?" That is a much bigger and more difficult philosophical question to answer, as I believe I have made clear.

Giving up to moral relativism is no answer for me. If you say some forms of morality are better than others, you are saying there are objective standards by which to judge.

(18-08-2017 12:50 AM)Robvalue Wrote: Also, I doubt there are very many people who base their morality on something they themselves think isn't real. Most people in the world think that they have some reliable way of finding out what "God" wants them to do (what their mum tells them), but since not even people in the same sect of the same religion can agree, I suspect they are just rationalizing the morality they already have.

At the beginning you wrote: "This is a challenge to anyone who thinks that morality is objective, whatever morality may mean to them."

So no, I don't have to try to justify what other people think is "objective morality."

(18-08-2017 12:50 AM)Robvalue Wrote: Also, I doubt there are very many people who base their morality on something they themselves think isn't real. Most people in the world think that they have some reliable way of finding out what "God" wants them to do (what their mum tells them), but since not even people in the same sect of the same religion can agree, I suspect they are just rationalizing the morality they already have.

At the beginning you wrote: "This is a challenge to anyone who thinks that morality is objective, whatever morality may mean to them."

So no, I don't have to try to justify what other people think is "objective morality."

I have offered the criteria of human suffering, which is not just a matter of opinion. Where human suffering is similar between cases, you can just flip a coin or opt out of any moral decision because the information isn't there to support one. This is because moral actions depend on an awareness of the problems and the ability to solve them. People actually apply this criteria all the time, and the differences between their applications has largely to do with their different levels of awareness and different abilities to deal with the problems in question.

Fair enough, I misunderstood your statement.

I have a website here which discusses the issues and terminology surrounding religion and atheism. It's hopefully user friendly to all.

(18-08-2017 10:15 AM)Thoreauvian Wrote: ...
The question then becomes, "Is there anything left in the field of ethics which can be considered objective?" That is a much bigger and more difficult philosophical question to answer, as I believe I have made clear.
...

And because it is the bigger question, the answer is yes.

But one has to abandon the ideas of objective vs. subjective morality and breakdown the various components of a 'morality system'.

I'm still sketching it out but so far the only thing I've found to be objective are the life-cycle/processes (although 'intrinsic' would be a better word) and some quantifiable metrics.

(17-08-2017 11:31 PM)Robvalue Wrote: If someone claims something is true, it's up to them to demonstrate that it's true. They draw their line in the sand, and then give evidence for why the line should be there. We then evaluate the evidence. For anything beyond the trivial, the scientific method has been the only reliable way of doing this.

Let's rephrase that in regards to morality. If someone claims something is immoral, it's up to them to demonstrate that it's immoral. They draw their line int he sand, and then given evidence for why the line should be there. We then evaluate the evidence.

But let's address the problem, you said "we then evaluate".

The ways in which any two people evaluate what's true, the criteria in which they might rely on, the standards that need to met before they accept something as true, can differ. Our epistemologies are not particularly universal.

Does this mean that truth is not objective?

My main point, is that yours and other people's arguments, against objective morality, can just as easily be reformatted to apply to truth. And in fact if I were to accept your argument that morality is subjective, in order to be consistent, I'd have to concede that truth is subjective as well, by the same criteria being appealed to by individuals such as yourself to suggest that morality is not objective.

If we were to summarize the arguments against objective morality, it often involves the facts that two people can differ on what they believe is immoral. In some situations what's morally wrong is ambiguous (unlike in certain situation, such as torturing innocent babies just for fun, it's not). Different people have different criteria for what constitutes as immoral.

All of which is true for "truth" as well.

"Tell me, muse, of the storyteller who has been thrust to the edge of the world, both an infant and an ancient, and through him reveal everyman." ---Homer the aged poet.

"In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it."